White Sand and Grey Sand

by Stella Gibbons

“O God,” was Christopher’s response to this. “Nothing I’ve got to do, please. I’ve quite enough on my plate already—new picture, and a baby coming, and everything costing as much as hell. What about?”

  “Ydette,” said Ida importantly. “We think it isn’t fair, the way you’ve made me send her a card every Christmas telling her not to forget about being a film star, and then you don’t do anything. It isn’t fair.”

  “She’s probably forgotten every word about it,” irritably. “I haven’t, but this last year has been so damned busy——”

  “Oh no, she hasn’t,” Nora said, in the light, cool voice that matched her clothes. “I’m certain the reason she goes to the pictures two or three times a week now is because of what you said to her.”

  “Does she go to the pictures two or three times a week?” staring. “How do you know?”

  “Adriaan.”

  “Adriaan? He hasn’t been writing to you, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Not to me,” said Nora. “To Dogfight.”

  “Writing to Dogfight? Adriaan?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t do anything about Ydette so I had to do something myself. I got his address out of Mummy’s book and typed a letter asking him for the latest information about Ydette Maes,” Ida said.

  “I hope he ticked you off good and proper,” said Christopher, staring.

  “Oh no, he didn’t. He was quite decent. He told me he’s living in Brussels now and doesn’t often go home, but he does see Ydette occasionally, and he said he was sure it was your going on (he wrote ‘going on’, his English really is very good, you know) about her being a film star that made her go three times a week to the pictures.”

  “That’s good hearing, anyway,” rumpling his hair with a painty hand; “shows she’s interested.”

  “Yes. She works for his father now, packing the orchids for export, out at that place Sint Niklaas. And she isn’t engaged or anything.”

  “You and Adriaan ought to set up a private enquiry agency.” But he was not really annoyed; in face, he was rather impressed by her enterprise. “What else did he say?”

  “Nothing much, except that he supposed your ideal of beauty must be the giraffe, since you admire Ydette so much. Oh, and he said she still goes around quite a bit with someone—a young man, a farmer—called Jooris Gheldeere,” she said, pronouncing the name carefully, but as it was spelt.

  “He seems to have kept a pretty good eye on her, even though he doesn’t often go home.”

  “He always did,” Nora reminded him; “don’t you remember how they used to gaze at each other? I thought it was a case.”

  “And don’t you now?”

  “I imagine if it had been, something would have occurred by now—since Adriaan is involved.” Her tone was dry and had an inflection of distaste. Christopher looked with a little brotherly malice at the long, thin figure sitting on the sofa surrounded by the unmanageable sheets of the morning’s newspapers. The tan dressmaker-suit was fashionable in cut and made of the last drip-dry, uncrushable material; the lipstick was the new bright coral pink and put on with no amateurish hand; her hair was cut by someone expensive and good—but already, poor old Nolly, she looked like a spinster.

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?” Ida had been standing with her legs in their neat, drab socks planted well apart while she critically studied a drawing by Gwen John above the mantelpiece; now she turned round and questioningly fixed her severe, light hazel eyes on her brother.

  “I suppose I could get her an introduction to Burke,” he muttered, again ruffling his hair; “he’s over here, at the moment, doing a picture for us, in fact. Nothing would be simpler, really; I do know him slightly. This is the moment—if ever. Some years ago he was working nearly all the time in America, and I wouldn’t have had a hope of getting him to see her (although she is just the type he likes best). I’d have had to work like stink pushing her around introducing her to a lot of people who might be no use to her anyway. Yes, now’s the moment, if I’m ever going to do anything. But it’s so inconvenient personally. I’ve got such a hell of a lot on my plate, with Sue in the last stages and everything—I can’t possibly ask Ydette to come here now.”

  “Why can’t you?” demanded Ida.

  “Because people would think it very peculiar and rude if Sue wasn’t here to be Ydette’s hostess, and Ydette would be nervous and shy if she were here all alone with me,” he said firmly, avoiding Nora’s eye, which had grown wary. “No, here is definitely out.”

  “Couldn’t the parents have her?” suggested Nora, almost praying that another and even more obvious solution might not occur to him.

  “I shouldn’t think so for a minute; you know what Father is about putting people up——”

  “I do indeed.”

  “—and she’s bound not to be an easy guest. Besides, he seems to have gone off anything to do with Belgium, in a decided sort of way, these last years. I suppose it’s the reaction, after Grandpapa having soaked him in it ever since he was a child.”

  “Can I go and ask Mrs Deane to make us some coffee?” asked Ida.

  “Not now; she’s fussed with my Do-it-Yourselfing, and I don’t want to upset her. And you’re always swigging coffee. Be warned by the Three Wise Virgins—they all drink too much coffee.”

  “They drink beer, too, though,” Ida instantly retorted. “Hilary knows lots about beer, and she says it’s good for your complexion; brewers’ men always have lovely rosy faces, she says.”

  “Hilary’s rustication has had a most unfortunate effect on her,” Christopher muttered. Then he ran his fingers once more through his hair, that was beginning to lose its fairness and natural lines of growth owing to firm treatment with brilliantine and brush, and stared fretfully out of the window.

  Nora almost held her breath. She disapproved strongly of bribery, but she had been compelled to resort to it to restrain Ida from suggesting, as she had wanted to do, that Ydette should stay with Nora and her friends at Imperial Court. Now, she tried very hard to prevent the idea from floating around in her own head.

  But it was too late.

  “Of course!” he suddenly cried, and it is not too much to say that Nora blenched as she heard, “You’ve got a spare room. She can go to you.”

  “I would have her,” she began slowly, marshalling her defences, “but it doesn’t quite rest with me. Evelyn and Hil have both been working so hard this year (so have I, for that matter) and we all need the last two weeks of the vac. to settle into our routine again. It’s really most important for Hil. You know the state she gets into about exams.”

  “Yes. She’s a shining example of my theories about women being over-educated——”

  “Need we go into that now? I know your views on the subject. If you have a daughter, you may feel differently.”

  “I shall welcome the chance to educate a girl appropriately, for once, and so will Sue … but let’s get this settled. You and Dogfight have decided something has got to be done about Ydette. Right. I can’t have her here; so you must have her or else nothing will be done this year. Now: yes or no?”

  “Oh Christopher, you know how I detest being bounced into things. …”

  All the same, by the time they were sitting over lunch in a much better restaurant than the one Nora herself had had in view, she knew (although they were still arguing and she was protesting) that not only would she persuade Evelyn and Hilary into sacrificing four days of their much-desired peace to a Belgian peasant whom Chris wanted to make into a film star (and Hil! who so despised films!), but that Ydette would almost certainly three weeks from now be occupying the spare room, sleeping under the quilt with the Jacobean design worked by Mummy Perowne, and keeping her unguessable-at personal possessions in the little bow-fronted lowboy that the three girls affectionately called Tubby.

  And so it came about. But it did not occur to either Christopher or his sister to draw a contrast between the world into which Christopher hoped to launch Ydette,
and the one in which she had grown up.

  “Ydette! Hi!”

  She was just mounting her bicycle. She turned, and looked dreamily in the direction whence came the sound of her name, while the other workers leaving the packing-sheds glanced with casual interest at Jooris, who was leaning out of the van; Friday was the day that he always met her and drove her home; what was he doing here on Wednesday? And—“It’s not Friday” was her first remark, as she came smiling towards him, wheeling her machine.

  “I know that, silly. But I was passing near here anyway and I thought you’d like a lift.”

  “Thank you.” It was pretty, the way Ydette always thanked everyone for doing things; it annoyed him that his mother and the neighbours were inclined to laugh at her for it. He opened the doors at the back of the van and lifted in the bicycle, while she was settling herself in front, in the seat next to the driver, drawing her skirts aside rather fastidiously from some old pieces of sacking that had somehow collected on the floor.

  While he was arranging the bicycle he was not thinking about what he was doing. This was a most unusual state of mind for Jooris, but it was in keeping with the extraordinary feeling that had come over him twenty minutes ago while he was driving back to the farm with a roll of wire-netting which he had been to fetch from a neighbouring village.

  He had been thinking that when he saw Ydette on Friday he must tell her they wanted her to spend a week of her holiday, which started next week-end but one, with them at the farm, as she had last year. And then, exactly as if he had suddenly become violently thirsty or hungry, he had wanted to see her: then: at once: without waiting for an instant.

  The craving had been so strong that he did not even think it strange; he could think of nothing else, and feel only that. Without hesitation he had swung the van round in the direction that would take him to Mijnheer van Roeslaere’s hothouses, then he had looked at his watch; yes, she would be coming out in about fifteen minutes’ time; he would just catch her.

  And now, as he shut the doors and shook them to make certain that they were fast, he was acting only from habit. He could see nothing, think of nothing, but Ydette: coming towards him just now across the wide pale road bordered by old willow trees covered in yellow leaves, under the vast quiet sky where violet-grey clouds whispered of rain: a shape as slender as a nymph, with hair looking black, so black, in the clear, fading-light.

  But it was only Ydette! He gave the doors a last masterful shake and marched round to the front of the van.

  “Looking forward to your holiday?” he demanded, having cleared his throat, when they had been rushing along for some minutes.

  Ydette reflected. Was she? Why must he drive so fast? she wanted to go slowly, and notice the country going by, and if it had not been for this smell of petrol, she could have breathed in all the cold, rich scents of autumn. That was why it would really have been better to have gone home as usual; it was good to see Jooris, but she always enjoyed the ride home; unless, of course, it was raining hard, or snowing.

  “Are you?” he repeated, and swung quickly round a rather sharp corner.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last.

  She had what seemed to her good private reasons for this answer, but she had to remind herself that he did not know them.

  “Don’t know!” he repeated (what was the matter with him this evening? His face looked different).

  “I don’t mind being at the packing-sheds,” she said, after another pause, and her mind—as it always did in these days when anyone showed the slightest sign of being difficult, or cross—slid off into thoughts about the pictures; she was going to see a film after supper.

  “Yes, but you want your holiday, don’t you?” This evening, for some reason, he was violently anxious that she should be like all the other girls whom he knew in Brugge and the villages roundabout. “Everybody likes holidays. Didn’t you like it at the farm with us last year?”

  What a question! What could be the matter?

  “Of course I liked it, Jooris.” She turned round the full gaze of her eyes—and instantly extraordinary sensations were running all over and up and down and through him; as if he were aching with cold while still warm with the full blaze of the sun; and it was all even odder and more disturbing than that.

  He said nothing more for a while, and Ydette was relieved. She did not like this talk of holidays. In her bag she carried the exciting, disturbing letter from England which had kept herself and the aunts sitting so long over supper last night, and so long at breakfast this morning that she had nearly been late for work in consequence. And she had almost made up her mind to go to England. Now, she did not want to tell Jooris about it all; why, she could not think, for, as much as she liked talking to anyone, she liked talking to him, and she had always been able to say more to him than to anyone else in the world. But she just felt that she did not want to tell him.

  “Like to come again this year?” he said suddenly.

  “Where? To the farm, do you mean?”

  “Where else could I mean?”

  “Oh yes. You know I should. It was so good last year, with the little pigs, and picking the pears. … Thank you, Jooris.” But now her heart was sinking. He was driving faster than ever, with such a red face. …

  “All right, then. When’ll you come? Mother said the second week of your holiday would be better, because she’ll be bottling the plums and pears all the first one.”

  Ydette wondered if she should say something about being willing to help with these tasks, and then realized that while they were in progress she would be in England. She said, thankfully, “Oh yes, that will be very good. Shall I come on the twenty-fourth, then? Thank you, Jooris, and please tell your mother thank-you for me, and your grandad.”

  She began to feel easier. Perhaps she would not have to tell him, after all, about going to England. He was sure to find out that she had gone, of course, but she did not mind that; what she minded was having to tell him herself, face to face.

  And then, with his next words, it looked as if she would have to tell him, after all; for he said, in a tone more like his usual one, “What are you going to do with yourself the first week? Do that old embroidery of yours all day and sit in the pictures all night?” He was going to suggest that they should spend a day in Oostende together.

  Now was the moment. Ydette tried to answer in the same tone, “Yes, I expect so,” and laugh, but she could not. She sat there as if dumb, and in a moment he turned and looked in surprise at a face that had turned the deep pink of an apple-blossom bud.

  “What’s the matter?”

  But there was no answer; she only looked at him imploringly.

  “What is it, Ydette. What’s the matter? Why are you looking like that?”

  The mutter that followed gave him to understand that she was not looking like that.

  “Yes, you are. … It must be something … I only asked you what you were going to do the first week of your holiday, and you——” He began to stare at her suspiciously. “What are you going to do?” The idea of another young man, a rival, struck him suddenly, with furious pain. A rival? But it was only Ydette!

  “Come on, now. You’re going to tell me.” He braked, and drew the van in carefully to the side of the road. He would have the truth out of her if they stayed here all night.

  It was so quiet, now, that Ydette heard the soft twittering of birds in the willows, settling themselves for the night, and she noticed, through her distress, a branch drooping above the gliding water of a dyke, and felt that she could almost see the dew gathering on its long, lemon leaves. The solemnity and deep hush of the Flemish countryside at twilight brooded over fields and sky.

  She was not angry with Jooris, nor was she experiencing even a reflection of the strange, strong feelings that were shaking him. She only did not want to tell him that she was going to England.

  “Come on, tell me,” said he, and suddenly put his arm about her waist, and held her. It was an exceedi
ngly strong arm, with muscles hardened by years of work in the open air from early morning until dusk, and she did not like the feel of it there at all. Certain thoughts about certain places, a number of exquisite pictures and powerful reveries that she had carried deep within her and yet, at the same time, outwardly surrounding her, ever since she could remember, seemed to shrink in fear as she felt that iron clasp. Save us, she could hear them whispering; we are in danger.

  She drew away from him, straining back against the side of the van.

  “I’m going to England,” she said quickly, “at least, I think I am … the sister of that young man, Mijnheer Ruddlin, you remember, four years ago, he made a film of us on the Mill. … Well, she’s asked me to go and stay with her in London. And I think I shall …” Her voice wandered off weakly, because he looked so strange, and it was strange, too, to feel a young man’s arm around her waist and know that it was the arm of Jooris. And he was so warm! he seemed to be keeping the chill of the evening away from them both by his mere breath.

  “What do you want to go there for?” he asked at last, and slowly pulled his arm away.

  “They asked me,” Ydette piped, with indignation beginning to arise. In all her moments of fearing to tell him that she was going, she had never supposed that he would mind. “They asked me,” she repeated. But it was very clear that he did mind.

  “There’s nothing for you over there, not a thing.”

  “He says he’ll show me Buckingham Palace, where their Queen lives, and——”

  “He?” It was a pounce, and it made her start.

  “Mijnheer Ruddlin——”

  “So he’s the one who’s asked you to go.”

  “His sister wrote to me,” said Ydette patiently. “I’m going to stay with her, in her appartement (a ‘flat’, they call it), and——”

  “Do you want to go?” he asked quickly, and—without his saying a word—the arm came back; not quickly, this time, but in a slower and somehow a much more alarming way(Oh save us, we are in danger), and this time Ydette began to feel rather confused, because she did not seem to mind it being there any more. She took her time about answering his question, because really there was such a lot to think about. But all that she could feel was the arm: hard, warm and somehow—for all her confusion—comforting.